


Chocolate, With Love

by ferporcel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferporcel/pseuds/ferporcel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus is gifted with chocolate one Easter morning and decides he wants more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chocolate, With Love

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Chocolate, Com Amor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384385) by [ferporcel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferporcel/pseuds/ferporcel)



> **Disclaimer:** It's not mine. It's all J K Rowling's.
> 
> The Easter bunny bit me, and it could only result in a fluffy thing. Annie Talbot beta-read it and said it was fluffy and sweet, too. I thank Annie for her set of eyes on this, and I thank the ladies at the SnapeFest Yahoo Group for feeding all the Easter bunnies with chocolate-covered carrots.

Filch, having no magic in him, needed constant help identifying cursed or jinxed objects. Hagrid, while being magical enough for the job, had an umbrella for a wand and no license to use it, in any case. Dumbledore, being a sadistic bastard, chose Snape to help inspect every single piece of Easter mail.

That was why he was in the owlery at this godforsaken hour, the moon still visible in the sun-rising sky. That was why he didn’t have to hide his surprise at reading his name on the box of chocolate he held. 

He scanned it, and it was clear—only inoffensive chocolate candy. Why would someone send him chocolate on Easter? No one had ever had. He found a card, and it had a simple message:

_**Happy Easter, Professor Snape!** _   
  
_**Hermione Granger** _

He actually growled at it. The over-achiever Granger would have sent chocolates for all her teachers, no doubt, expecting her grades to rise after that. Severus looked for boxes like the one addressed to him, but couldn’t find any. His was the only mail from Granger, and that gave him pause. Severus inspected the box more carefully for jinxes and curses and still found none.

Granger had sent him a box of chocolate candy. 

Only for him.

No one else.

Severus set it aside and inspected the other packages and letters in haste, leaving Filch to sort the deliveries by himself, took his box, and went back to his dungeon quarters.

He placed the box at the center of the low table in front of the hearth and contemplated his options. Severus could smile and enjoy the chocolate with some good coffee, or he could throw the candies with the box into the fire and pretend this never happened. 

Severus liked chocolate, though, and these seemed to be of a fine quality.

Granger’s taste.

After staring thoughtfully at the pale green box, Severus sighed dramatically and opened its top, taking a carefully packed candy from inside. It smelled divine as he unwrapped it, and it melted into his tongue, making him hum with pleasure when he bit at it. He even forgot to curse Granger for her audacity, as he’d planned. He didn’t even think about cursing when he licked the tips of his fingers in contentment. 

By the third candy, he was praising Granger for her thoughtful idea. By the fifth, Severus would have kissed the smart Gryffindor for her brilliance.

It was with reluctance that he closed the box to save a few for later.

What was wrong with him? It was like he’d never been…. Well, he _had_ never been gifted chocolates by a woman, or anyone else, before. He felt lightheaded and confused. 

The box remained untouched the rest of the day, and Severus congratulated himself for regaining his ability to curse Granger again. She could send him chocolate—heavenly, delicious—but she would still be the same annoying little Gryffindor.

Even if he couldn’t remember her being neither annoying nor little in any recollections he had from this year.

Damn!

He tried really hard to forget the grown woman and keep only images of the know-it-all first-year while he let himself drift off that night, but his mind had to conjure perfect teeth and full lips just moments from falling asleep, leaving him at the mercy of chocolate-filled dreams of Hermione.

Facing her on Monday had been awkward. She had never commented on the chocolate she’d sent, but he could tell that she knew he’d gotten and liked it. They would exchange polite words he would not expend on any other person, and every look, smile, and tone of her voice, he’d carry with him, feeding his senses like the chocolate had.

There was one piece of candy left in the box. To eat it would mean to let any reminder of what it represented go. Severus could not let her go. The box with a solitary candy was now on his nightstand. He would look at it before falling asleep, and he would do that for every night until she graduated, when he would let her know how he felt.

Graduation came, and Hermione left. Severus had come to his senses a week previously and had put the chocolate box away, had visited old friends of low reputation, and had pretended to be ecstatic about it.

He was miserable, though.

Severus would never seek Hermione out, but he would forever keep that box with that single candy with him. 

Almost a year without her had passed when Severus decided he could get away with sending her a Christmas gift. He’d chosen chocolate and had attached a simple card that said:

**_In retribution._**  
  
 ** _Happy Christmas._**   
  
**_Severus Snape_**

He didn’t know how she had taken that gift, because for months, Severus heard nothing of it. It was only on Easter morning, a whole year after Hermione had become the woman of his heart, when he found out.

She was like a vision of beauty standing there by his door, holding a wrapped box in her hands.

“Happy Easter, Severus.”

After feasting in her appearance for a moment, he was finally able to invite, “Come in, Hermione.”

Her smile had touched and brightened his soul.

They’d spent more than an hour talking about everything and nothing at all. It felt so right; it felt so good. He’d wanted to bury his hands on her hair and kiss her when she revealed her single status. He’d wanted to drop her on the rug and top her when she ate the candy he’d offered from the box she’d gifted him with.

It was she who jumped and kissed him when he hummed with the pleasure of the chocolate she had brought, and from then on, the day had been too short to satiate both of their desires.

The single candy from the first box was charmed in protective spells, and it represented the infinity of their love for one another—a story which generations of Granger-Snapes would know by heart.


End file.
